


Solar Eclipse

by Saffronthread



Category: Akatsuki no Yona | Yona of the Dawn
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Earthquakes, Fluffy at times, Gen, POV Original Character, Shin-ah is too pure for us, Shin-ah needs a hug, his village sucked omg, poor shin-ah
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-27
Updated: 2018-09-25
Packaged: 2018-12-20 09:24:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11917932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saffronthread/pseuds/Saffronthread
Summary: "On my second birthday, under the light of the full moon, a woman from the village killed herself. Her story became somewhat of a cautionary tale parents would tell their children before bed, warning them of the curse that plagued the blood of their people. Alas, there were many cautionary tales of women like her native to the village, so in time this one wound up lost in a tangled web that blended with all the others that came before it. Keeping the stories separate didn’t matter that much though, all of them sounded the same to those who were old enough to have lived through these tales multiple times over. The cause was always the same, and the outcome never surprised anyone."Sakura was raised to fear the Seiryuu above all else, however she couldn't help but notice that he was, more than anything, just a child. Surely children couldn't be monsters, could they?





	1. Chapter 1

     My father was a baker from Chi’Shin up until he turned twenty years old. On his twentieth birthday, he decided to travel across the country to see all of the Tribes. The city was his first love, with its bustling streets and restless people, but knew that he needed to see all that he could of Kouka while he still had the energy and time to do so. He was betrothed to a woman from the city at the time, a timid girl whose father was the most prominent herbalist, but she was a little over five years younger than him and still not of age to marry. His father and her father were lifelong friends, so when my grandfather came into some financial issues, his closest friend was the first to offer a helping hand. In return, all that was asked of him was to arrange a marriage between their children so that he would not have to worry about his daughter’s future. The legal marrying age in Kouka was sixteen, so the timing to travel was perfect. Daichi, my father, had a full year and then some before being duty-bound to marry, and he was not the type to waste precious time.  
     Baking, he always said, was the greatest trade as it could be done anywhere and made people smile without fail. No one held hatred for a man offering warm bread for a fair price, that was his motto. He made a living hopping from village to village selling cakes and bread, all the while seeing the world and forming friendships with the people he met along the way. He gathered fantastic stories from bars and markets, stories of kings and beasts, hunters and dragons, replaying them over and over in his mind at night so he would never forget them. He attended festivals and feasts, drank until dawn, slept outside under a blanket of stars on warm nights, and gained new spices that he had never even heard of before. He learned how to make spicy breads with nuts, cakes with ginger and fruits, and sweet drinks that were boiled in cinnamon, all from men and women who came to see him as one of their own. Leaving villages and saying goodbye to the families he’d come to think of as his own was always the hardest part. He soldiered on through the heartache, even when it meant leaving a piece of his heart behind, never once losing sight of his ultimate goal of traveling across Kouka.  
     For the first five months, he remained in the Earth Tribe, but he had his sights set on the Water and Wind Tribes, eager to see what the new lands would have in store for him. It was common knowledge that the Fire Tribe, large as it may be, was struggling to financially support its people, that the leader poured all of the Tribe’s money on military power despite the vastness and destitution of the population. It was best not to travel through a land where disease was rampant and women and children were left vulnerable on the streets. The lands of wind and water were far more stable and offered a wider array of experience that my father craved more than anything.  
     However, he didn’t get very far - he stumbled upon a particular village on the border of the Earth Tribe that piqued his interest. While the villagers themselves were questionable, inhospitable to travelers and strangely secretive, he couldn’t help but be in awe of my mother, the beautiful daughter of one of the five village elders. Father stayed as a rather unwanted guest in this village for two months until he asked for my mother’s hand in marriage.  
     There was just one condition: once he married into the village, he could never leave. This rule was concerning, but Father was not one to allow anything to get in the way of what he truly wanted. Plus, he was curious of this village and wanted desperately to know the reasons for their odd customs. He assumed that they were surely hiding something, but he could never piece together what that something was. All he knew was that all the villagers kept a safe distance, with the exception of my mother, who pleaded with the elders on his behalf to allow him to stay past his initial welcome. They were all cautious around him, speaking to him minimally with careful words and short gestures, as though afraid he might turn and burn them all to the ground if the fancy struck him. It nearly drove him insane with wonder, so much so that the only thing to keep him grounded was my mother, Eri, whom he loved with such a passion that he forgot all he had accomplished and worked for. If this was what love felt like, then there was no way he could possibly leave it. He would never be able to go back to his father and marry a woman whose hair did not shine like the stars, whose touch did not electrify every hair on his body, or whose eyes were not as captivating as the sea. So he agreed to these strange terms, knowing that he would never again be able to return to Chi’Shin and face his family or his former betrothed, and my parents were married a mere two weeks later. It wasn’t until afterwards that he found out why he couldn’t leave.  
     He was never quite sure if he made the right decision.

~

     On my second birthday, under the light of the full moon, a woman from the village killed herself.  
     Her story became somewhat of a cautionary tale parents would tell their children before bed, warning them of the curse that plagued the blood of their people. Alas, there were many cautionary tales of women like her native to the village, so in time this one wound up lost in a tangled web that blended with all the others that came before it. Keeping the stories separate didn’t matter that much though, all of them sounded the same to those who were old enough to have lived through these tales multiple times over. The cause was always the same, and the outcome never surprised anyone.  
     Only after the sun fell from the horizon and the last embers from the fire had been snuffed out did the villagers tell the tale of the woman who gave birth to something evil, something that was sure to bring disaster to the entire village. A monster.  
     They say she couldn’t look her cursed child in the eye, that she was trying to suffocate it when they found her on the ledge of a cliff. The elders stopped her in time, held her down, took the child from her trembling hands. Killing the monster was against the rules, they reminded her, and the punishment was execution. They told her if her baby were to die, the curse of the dragon eyes would come back in someone else’s baby instead.  
     She retorted, with an eerie calm, that she had no baby.  
     And jumped.  
     No one blamed her.

~  
_Four Years Later_

     When I was six years old, my father taught me how to make the honey cakes native to Chi’Shin. His were perfectly formed and had the right amount of honey drizzled on top, with a sweetness that was not too overwhelming, but still made eyes light up like a child’s. The same could not be said about mine.  
     “It takes practice,” was all he said. I used to love watching as he lost himself in his work, his rhythmic shaping of the dough, sifting the flour, and pouring the honey as though it was an extension of himself. His movements were so fluid and natural that I wondered how long he had practiced until baking became second nature to him. _Could I ever be that skilled?_  
     We set off to the market that afternoon to sell the cakes. Mother had braided my hair before we left, “so she’ll look like the other merchant women,” she giggled and kissed my forehead before pushing us out the door and wishing us luck. The roads were usually so busy with all of the merchants and shoppers that it was easy for a child to get lost among the crowd. For this reason, it was decided that lost children would go to a small clearing near a large tree to wait for their parents to find them. As the days went on, the children met there regardless to find each other.  
     “Sakura, why don’t you play with those other children over there while I set up our booth?” He pointed to a group of children around my age playing with spinning tops in the dirt. I nodded and rushed to see what game they were playing. This was not my first time joining their games, but it was my last.  
     “Alright, go! Spin!” The strings were pulled and the tops were released to see which one would spin the longest. One of the tops spun too far out of the group, and when of the kids went to go retrieve it, he froze in his tracks when he saw who had picked it up.  
     The others were shaking, gasping, turning their faces away slowly.  
     I had never seen him in person before, most of us hadn’t.  
     The Seiryuu.  
     Mother told me he was a monster - an evil spirit who would turn people to stone if they looked into his eyes. She said that she was relieved when I was born. Relieved that I had regular black hair and normal blue eyes. She was relieved I turned out to be just a girl - the Seiryuu was always a male child.  
He wore a mask that covered the top half of his face and old, stained clothes that were too baggy on his tiny frame. His shoes were worn and looked as though they might tear soon in multiple places. His hair was as blue and as gentle as the afternoon sky.  
      _Blue hair? How strange._  
     Regardless, he was a kid. He didn’t look like a monster.  
     “Um...I...I’m sorry...um,” he started, shaking more than the other kids who were now backing away in panic. “Can...I...watch?” The others ran and screamed, abandoning their toys. I backed away slowly, cautious of him because of what Mother told me, but unable to fully take my eyes off of him. Everyone in the village would be lying if they said they weren’t just a little curious about the boy. He hung his head low, not looking in my direction anyway.  
     “Seiryuu!” A booming voice. Behind the boy appeared a man with long, pale blue hair and a sword resting on his back. He gazed down at the boy, hair obscuring his face.  
     “A-Ao!”  
      _Ao?_  
     The man grabbed the Seiryuu by the hand, forcing him to drop the toy, and dragged him away in an instant. The people of the village cleared a path for them as they walked through, turning their backs quickly and murmuring to one another.  
     “Sakura..?” Father came up behind me, following my line of vision. “Oh.” I felt his hand rest on my shoulder, turning me away from the scene. “Why don’t we go sell those cakes now?”  
     I ducked under his touch and moved to collect the abandoned tops before going to the booth Father had set up. “Father, who was that man?”  
     “The previous Seiryuu.” The words were tense as they left his lips. Even at my age, I knew it was something he didn’t want to talk about. I wanted to ask why they didn’t look like monsters.   Why did they look like ordinary people? Shouldn’t monsters look scary?  
     I couldn’t ask anyone else those questions. Mother spoke of the boy with such vehemence that she was sometimes unrecognizable. Surely if my usually kind and gentle mother held such hatred for the Seiryuu, there was good reason.  
     There must have been.  
     Over the next few weeks, I wondered about the boy and how exactly he might be a monster. Mother said he was, so she must be right of course. However, he didn’t look anything like one, which never added up in my mind. I thought monsters were big, ugly, and terrifying, not small and shaking. Why did he ask to watch our game? The curse, I’ve been told, is in his eyes. Maybe he wanted to watch and curse the game for his own amusement?  
     Even to a six year-old that didn’t make sense.  
     But he must have been a monster. That woman, his mother, killed herself when he was born. Why would a mother ever do that unless her child was evil?  
     Most of the people in the village forgot the exact day he was born, but I always remembered. We had the same birthday, but because of the Seiryuu, Mother didn’t let us celebrate on that day, but rather the day after. A day that wasn’t cursed. Father never said this out loud, but I could always tell that he never quite bought into Mother’s extreme hatred for the boy. They had many fights regarding him throughout my life - about when to celebrate my birthday, about how a single person with a mask, who had never harmed any of the villagers to date, could be dangerous, about how he shouldn’t protect the village if its people treat him so inhumanely. Mother just responded with, “You wouldn’t understand, Daichi. Outsiders never understand.”  
     When the previous Seiryuu died, an unusual hush blanketed the village. Yes, there was one less monster to deal with, but that meant that the boy now had all of the curse within him. He was more of a threat to us now.  
     “Father?” I asked while we were walking to the market that afternoon.  
     “Hmm?”  
     “Does this mean that boy will live all alone now?” No one else in the village went near him - only the previous Seiryuu was allowed to talk to or be around him.  
     “Yes.” End of discussion.  
     The threat he posed became clear to everyone the following day.  
     They day all of our lives changed.  
     I was in my room, unable to sleep as my parents argued late into the night again. Normally, I would escape through the window in my room and walk around the village until the yelling stopped. They never caught me, but I got the feeling that Father knew I snuck out and didn’t say anything. Mother would never approve if she knew. She would say that I would run into the Seiryuu and get turned into stone. I never saw him on my walks around the village until that evening.  
     I wasn’t planning on going out in the first place that night. It was raining pretty hard and I didn’t want to burden my parents by getting sick, but their screams were becoming unbearable the more time had passed. I felt as though the room was closing in on me and my throat was collapsing entirely. I held my palm to my tightened chest and sat up in bed. Breathing became easier, but it wasn’t good enough. The room was blurry and shifting from side to side, the dirt floor spinning in lazy circles.  
     When my feet touched the ground I felt the lack of movement and knew that my mind was playing tricks on me again. Perhaps a short walk wouldn’t get me too sick? I didn’t want to miss a day of working with Father, but I couldn’t be at home. After pulling on my coat and slowly making my way across the room, I pulled back the cloth covering my window and climbed out. I already felt better now that there was some distance between me and their argument. The clouds were a pale gray that offered little light to go by, but I knew they would darken soon. The rain was likely to only fall down harder as the night went on.  
     The village itself was peaceful despite all that was stacked against it. The little huts weren’t lavish in the least, but they were sturdy and kept the villagers safe from the cold. No one in town was particularly wealthy. Mother told me once that, aside from paying taxes to the capital, we paid high taxes to the village elders, who used that money to stock up on provisions for the village so we would not have to interact with other communities as often. This tax, according to Mother, was set in place because of the curse. She said that if anyone found out about the evil eyes, they would attack the village and sell the Seiryuu to the highest bidder, which was likely to be the crown. So long as we concealed his existence, the Seiryuu in turn protected the village from bandits and others who might harm us. Mother said that there hadn’t been a serious incident in over a hundred years, so that meant that the rules the elders set were effective.  
     The rain was falling down faster and heavier now as the pale clouds were darkening. I was near the edge of the village and about to turn back when a light ringing caught my attention.  
      _A bell?_  
     Curious, I ran towards the border that separated the homes and the fields and saw blurs of dark shapes a little ways off. The only thing that I could make out clearly from that distance was a tiny fleck of blue floating amongst a sea of gray and black figures, which were falling to the ground one by one.  
_The Seiryuu?_  
     It all happened so fast. The dark figures had all fallen around the blue speck, like dogs laying at the feet of their master. Lightning flashed, and the Seiryuu collapsed with them.

  
     The next afternoon, the five elders informed us all that the village was being forced to relocate. The late Seiryuu allowed a bandit to escape on the night he died and that bandit had apparently led troops straight to us. The current Seiryuu, they told us, committed the greatest sin that could be made in the village: he unleashed his curse on the troops and killed them all. He exposed our secret.  
     “We all must face the consequences of this monster’s actions,” my grandfather, one of the elders, yelled to be heard in the crowd. “We cannot hide this many bodies, so we must leave before more troops come after us.” He paused and looked down at his balled fists, which were squeezed so tightly that they started to shake. “The Seiryuu has truly damned us all.”


	2. Chapter 2

     Groups of families and friends huddled together as we ascended further north into the mountains located on the border of the Fire Tribe and Southern Kai. This place was rumored to be a safe haven for those fleeing from war and was our only hope of not getting discovered. The air became more and more frigid every mile we walked, reflecting . Wisps of my dark hair refused to stay put with each gust of wind and obstructed my view every few seconds. Mother gently combed her fingers through my hair to set it back into place and smiled warmly at me. Blankets were shared, gloves passed around to the children, and scarves were wrapped tightly around everyone’s necks. The wind was brisk, but it was easier to breathe in as opposed to the humidity of our old village.  
     At the very end of the line, the sound of a bell attached to a patch of blue hair struggled to keep up.  
     I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw the thick rope tied around his neck, being yanked on every few seconds by one of the elder’s sons. The boy looked...scared. Confused.  
     Helpless.  
     His clothes had an array of new stains and tears from who knows what. His shoes were gone, forcing him to step directly on every rock and sharp twig that came his way, and bruises bloomed all over his face and limbs. Were monsters supposed to look like that?  
     He didn’t look like a murderer.  
     But he was, wasn’t he? He killed those troops?  
     Mother frowned at him and muttered about how they should have kept him in a cage instead. Father frowned also, but not at the boy.  
     Something disturbed me about this - a feeling of not being able to look away didn’t sit well in my chest. When Mother eventually forced me to turn my head back around, the image of him all tied up stayed in my mind’s eye.  
     We stopped at midday to rest and have lunch. Groups of families huddled together and shared dried meats, nuts, and rice balls while easing into layers of conversations. Mother and Father sat with my grandfather and a couple of the other elders. I did not understand most of what they were talking about, so I turned my attention back to the Seiryuu. Who does he eat with? I thought that maybe the elders took turns in who dealt with him. Instead, he was sitting alone a few yards off, wiping blood off his knees with his tattered sleeves. He had no food, and I realized then that no one was going to give him any.  
     “Father?” A few irritated glares landed on me for interrupting the adult’s conversation. Father, on the other hand, seemed relieved.  
     “Hmm?”  
     “Shouldn’t he eat something?” I pointed at the Seiryuu, who looked up and took notice. Mother, who was sitting next to me, slapped my hand down and jerked my head away from his gaze.      My hand stung, but her reaction stung more. “I mean..” I started cautiously, hoping for her to see that my concern was for the benefit of the village at large. “If he starves, wouldn’t one of the pregnant women in the village be in danger of having the next cursed one?” There was an unusually high number of women on the cusp of giving birth at that time and I didn’t think they would appreciate the added anxiety if something were to compromise the health of their children.  
     “Ahh..” Father looked down at the meat in his hands and sighed. “You have a point.”  
     “It’ll be fine,” Mother’s tone was cold, and I knew this wasn’t the last I would hear from her on the subject. Surely, she would find time to scold me later where the elder’s eyes were not hovering over her. The adults quickly jumped back to their discussion as though I had never said anything. Father swiftly tossed a piece of dried meat in my lap and returned to the resumed conversation. Somehow, I knew that it wasn’t meant for me.  
     That night, I waited until everyone was lulled to sleep by the cricket’s songs before getting up. With a group as large as ours, I had been waiting for quite some time for things to settle down. We were situated on one side of a large tree at the edge of the campsite. I creeped to the other side of the trunk and squinted through the darkness. Where is he? I noted that he wasn’t given food at dinner either, he just sat and tried to wipe off mud from the puddle the older boys had kicked him in shortly before making camp for the night.  
     He should be at the tail end of the group, no?  
     Walking a short ways down the path, I spotted the rope they had tied him with during the day. One end was tied around the base a tree, the other hung limp on the ground next to a small pair of bells that were usually attached to the Seiryuu’s mask.  
     Had he...escaped?  
     I looked around frantically and saw a tiny glow at the base of a hill we had come down earlier. It was a ways away, but there was no moon that night, which made me positive that it must the a light from a torch or lamp of some sort.  
     I turned back to check that my family was sleeping before taking the path to the hill, dried meat hidden up my sleeve. With the moon hidden from sight, there wasn’t much light to go by other than the now growing flame in the distance. My eyes adjusted eventually, but by that point I was close enough to see by the small flame up ahead. After nearly tripping half a dozen times on rocks and roots, I finally came within earshot of them. About six masked boys from the village, all of whom were on the cusp of manhood, were huddled in a circle, crying out things I could not yet make out.  
     I took to the trees, easing my way closer to the group from the shadows while making as little noise as possible. If they found me, they would surely tell my parents and the elders. Once I had a clear view of the scene, something sour rose up in my throat.  
     “It’s because of you we had to leave!” One of the boys choked out, tears staining his face. “Everything bad is always because of you! We get attacked because of you and we can’t leave the village because of you!” In the center of the group was the blue haired boy, his head held down in the dirt while receiving kick after kick to his stomach and ribs. The air had become thin in those moments and the all too familiar feeling of being unable to breathe, to move, to shout had returned to me. My chest constricted as though something was squeezing my heart until it broke open. I hated myself for how helpless I was in that state, but I hated myself even more for sympathizing with those words. They were certainly true, the villagers had many limitations because of the Seiryuu, limitations that prevented us from leading normal lives.  
     But...that wasn’t really his fault though, was it? He was just a boy who seemed to be more afraid of us than we were of him. These boys…they saw that. They should have feared him like all the others, but they didn't. They were angry enough to take the risk, and they knew, somewhere near the surface of their minds, that he wouldn't hurt them. We had all seen the boy’s behavior since the previous Seiryuu died. Subconsciously, we all knew his kindness extended far beyond the norm, that he craved companionship more than we could comprehend. I thought back to that day I first saw him, when he asked to watch the game, and when they ran from him. I thought back to the disappointment that seemed so familiar to his features, as though it was an extra layer of skin that he stopped trying to peel away.  
     I rested my head against the tree trunk, eyes squeezed shut. The dizziness was returning to me as I tried piecing things together in my head. Focusing on my breathing, I counted up to fifty to myself, trying to ignore the cries of the group before me. Halfway through, a new cry filled my thoughts - one I couldn’t push out. It was frail and soft, but there was no mistaking that it belonged to the Seiryuu. I opened my eyes and saw that he was bleeding now, a tear on his pant leg revealing a cut behind his knee. He cried out the same word over and over again, “Ow! Ow!        Ow!”  
     Or maybe…  
     “AO!”  
     That...was probably it. A sadness washed over me in that moment that ceased the spinning and replaced it with something else - a weight on my chest that was different from the others I had experienced in the past. Tears pricked my eyes but refused to fall as I took deep, slow breaths, waiting for this nightmare to pass.  
When the group eventually calmed down and returned to camp, they left the poor boy bleeding in the dirt. I wanted to go to him, but if I did that, he would have known that I was there. Watching. He would have known that I did nothing to stop them.  
     He would have known of my cowardice.  
     The light from the lantern the boys had with them was gone, making it difficult to make out his shape. Relying on my hearing instead, I knew that he was still conscious - his breaths were uneven, but I could hear him trying to control them. His breathing soon shifted into sobs.  
     “Ao… Ao…”  
     I couldn’t handle it anymore. I stepped out from behind the tree, the noise startling him back into silence. This was a bad idea. All I wanted was to give him food so he wouldn’t starve, I never expected to be completely alone with him.  
     What if...what if he turned me to stone?  
_What am I doing? He KILLED those troops! I SAW him do it! He’s a MURDERER!_ I fought with myself, trying to differentiate between what I knew had happened, and what I felt was right. He didn't  _look_ like a monster. If he was… surely he would have killed his attackers. If he was evil, he would have found a way to unleash the curse on them. But he didn’t. He didn’t hurt them. I made up my mind then and there.  
     “I...I’m not going to...” My voice was shaking, tears finally catching up with me. My eyes readjusted to the darkness and I could see him cowering on the ground, looking up at me while trying to back away with one arm. He moved his injured leg slightly and cried out in pain.  
     Crouching to my knees, I held out my hands to show that I meant no harm. He stopped trying to back away and instead stared at me for an uncomfortable minute. I didn’t dare move. I realized, to my surprise, that I wasn’t afraid of him. I was more worried of him being afraid of me. Slowly, I pulled the dried meat out from my sleeve and held it out to him. He stared but made no move to take it. “It’s for you,” I said, with more confidence this time. “You didn’t eat today and I thought…” I waved the food in his direction. “I’m going to move closer to you now. Just take it, okay?”  
     He nodded. I moved close enough to him that he was within arms reach of my outstretched hand. When he reached out and took the dried meat, he winced and clutched his shoulder with his other hand. I had no medical training, so the feeling of helplessness stabbed at me again. I sat next to him and waited until he was finished eating. It was a slow process, though. It appeared his jaw was hit too, making his chewing all the slower. It wasn’t a bother to me, I didn’t mind sitting with him. “I’m sorry.”  
     He gasped next to me, but nothing more.  
     “I’m sorry about what they did. Those guys...they’re mean. They...shouldn’t have done that.”  
     Sniffles, followed by faint sobs.  
     What could I possibly say to him?  
     I reached out and gently placed my hand on his shoulder, moving my thumb in tiny circles on his arm. Mother did this to me when I was upset, and though it didn’t fix anything, I always found the repetitive gesture to be calming. “Does this…hurt?” He shook his head no.  
     We sat like that for a few minutes until my arm started to go numb and I stopped. “We should head back before someone notices we’re gone.” I stood and reached my hand out to him. “Do you need help getting back?” He stared up at me, unsure. From where I stood, it looked like he was going to start crying all over again.  
     He lifted his hand out towards mine and hesitated right before taking it. Meeting him halfway, I took his hand in mine and helped pull him up. He winced and hissed at the pain, but made no further complaint. We headed back to camp, walking at a slower pace.  
     Mother was going to kill me if she found out about this.  
     My breathing became shallow again, but I took deep, long breaths before it got any worse. The Seiryuu stopped and watched me for a moment, hand outstretched as though he thought I might fall over.  
     Was he...concerned?  
     “I’m fine,” I said simply. “I just have a hard time breathing sometimes.”  
     “…Oh…I…I’m sorry…” I whipped my head around, surprised to hear him speak. His voice was so soft, as though it would snap in half with the slightest amount of pressure.  
     “It…it’s not your fault.” He looked down and focused on the ground at that.  
     “Hmm.”  
     Everyone was still sleeping by the time we got back to camp. I walked him over to his spot by the tree and watched in horror as he tied the rope back around his neck. He saw me staring and quickly averted his gaze. My legs felt like lead as I knelt by him and took his shoulder one more time, gently rubbing tiny circles with my thumb. Without another word, I stood up and headed back to where my parents slept. Looking back, I saw him watching me and nodded to him before crawling back under my blankets. I didn’t sleep at all that night, and the soft sniffles throughout the night told me that he didn’t either.  
     The next day, no one asked why the Seiryuu was covered in dark purple bruises. During the day the rope at his neck was pulled tighter and more frequently due to his slowed pace, which caused him to cry out in pain. Everyone noticed, but no one cared. No one asked if he was alright, no one helped him up when he fell.  
It made me sick.  
     The bells he had tied back onto his mask rang at his every movement. Everyone around us seemed to be annoyed by them, but they gave me something to focus on when my breathing became unstable. Mother and Father knew nothing of the dizzy spells and difficulty breathing I experienced and I wanted to keep it that way. In fact, the Seiryuu was the only one who knew.  
I looked back at him a handful of times throughout the day when Mother wasn’t paying attention to me. Half the time, he was already watching me. I tried to convey my sadness for him through my facial expression, but I wasn’t sure if the message got through. His mask made it hard to read him. However, he never broke eye contact. It was as though he clung to it, as though this interaction was something important. I would turn away whenever my parents or some other family member called out for me. I didn’t want them to see him looking in my direction, they might have thought he was trying to turn me to stone. I didn’t want to get him in any more trouble.  
     He didn’t receive food at all that day either, I noticed, but I didn’t have a chance to stow away anything for him from dinner. We arrived at our destination just before the sun set and everyone immediately started settling in. “A mountain?” I asked, taking Father’s hand. The mountain was tall enough that I couldn’t see the top of it from where I stood, and there were windows and intricate towers carved into the stone on one side. At the base, grass and weeds grew rampant. The area was creepy, as though no one had inhabited it in decades.  
     “This place was once a refuge for those escaping war. Now, it will be our new home.”  
     I turned to find the Seiryuu, but both he and the elders were nowhere in sight.  
     In the following days, weeks, months, I combed through the confusing hallways inside the mountain, but it was as though he had vanished completely.


	3. Chapter 3

_ 5 Years Later _

 

Hiroshi was getting on my nerves again. I had him cornered in one of the tunnels, away from the other boys from the village. “Don’t be such a baby, Sakura, you know girls aren’t allowed to play with us.” 

“Hiroshi, if you don’t let me play, I will go straight to my grandfather!” A grin spread on my face and I crossed my arms across my chest triumphantly. No one wanted to be scolded by an elder, so that threat worked every time. 

I could tell he was annoyed, even through his mask. He leaned against the damp wall of the cave and held my gaze, mask to mask. “If you do that, I won’t kill bugs for you ever again.” Now it was his turn to act smug. With no other leverage on my part, he trotted off to meet up with his other friends. It was annoying. Hiroshi was my only real friend in the village, but he had a lot of other friends besides me. There weren’t any other girls my age, so I didn’t have many options for playmates. The girls closest to my age were all about four to six years old, I couldn’t really play with them without it feeling like I was babysitting. Besides, young children were incredibly irritating. 

I hated it when the other boys convinced Hiroshi to not invite me to play with them solely because I was a girl. Mother told me that one day I would be happy that there weren’t other women my age. She said that all the boys would have to try to win my hand in marriage if they didn’t want to wait until the younger girls were of age and therefore have children later in life. The thought of having to raise one of their children made my stomach queasy.  

I started heading back to my room to see if Mother was busy - she told me she would teach me how to braid hair this week. I sighed. Walking through these caves was always unsettling, especially alone. The tunnels twisted and turned like a maze, so it wasn’t difficult to get lost if you weren’t paying attention. Not to mention that the masks we were forced to wear made it even more of a pain to see. Sure, there were torches in each hallway, and we all were used to the dim lighting by now, but it was still easy to get one turn confused with another. 

It was times like these, when the walls made me feel as though I was being watched constantly, when I thought of the blue haired boy. No one had seen him since we moved here, and only the elders and select adults knew of his whereabouts. However there were times, late at night when I walked through the tunnels to clear my head after one of my parent’s arguments, when I heard a faint ringing. Almost like a bell. It always sounded so far off, as though it was only in my imagination - a distant memory climbing to the surface. 

I knew he was in this mountain somewhere. We were all forced to wear masks so that any outsider who came to the village wouldn’t be able to differentiate between a normal villager and the Seiryuu. But more importantly, there had not been another Seiryuu born yet, which was proof enough that he was alive. 

_ I bet he would still play with me even though I’m a girl.  _

I shook my head at these thoughts. It mattered not, the boy was no different than a ghost at this point. 

When I got home, Mother was nowhere to be seen. Father, on the other hand, was at our small wooden table making bread dough for the morning. Once a week, Father was allowed to take his breads and cakes to nearby villages to trade for medicines, spices, and other things the village might need. Other artisans like him were also allowed this privilege, but Father would go more frequently than the others. I had never seen him as happy as when he was preparing to make the two day journey to the nearest town. 

When Father first married Mother, he was told he would never be able to leave so that he could never tell anyone about the Seiryuu. Luckily for him, some flexibilities were made when we all moved to the mountains a few years back. Traveling was always Father’s dream, one he never got to truly fulfill. My free time was spent daydreaming of places I would travel to and people I would meet should I ever pick up where my father left off. It was a nice thought that helped me pass time during long days and cold nights. 

Not that I would be allowed to leave for longer than a few days. And if I did, I would never be welcomed back. No one with blood ties to this village is permitted to leave permanently. Disaster would strike if someone were to run away and give birth to the next Seiryuu among the outsiders. That would be the ultimate betrayal, a line no one dared cross. 

“Sakura, you’re home early,” Father said without breaking his methodical kneading of the dough. “Everything alright?”

“Yes,” I said, moving to sit opposite him at the table. I liked watching him work. He held a certain rhythm that I couldn’t quite replicate in my own cooking. “Father, will I ever be able to go with you to the other villages?” I ran my hands through my hair and tied it in a bun on top of my head. My mask was already off at this point, sitting on the floor next to Father’s near his feet. 

“I hope so. When you’re older, most likely. It would be good for you to see what else is out there, even if it’s just a small portion of it.” He reached into the bowl next to him and lifted another flour-coated lump from it. “Knead this,” he handed me the elastic dough and I got to work. It didn’t take very long before they were ready to be baked. Father took all of his creations down to the makeshift fire oven the village had made, leaving me home to start dinner. The kitchen was too small for more than one person. I wouldn’t be allowed to go by myself for another two years, when I turned thirteen years old, which was frustrating. I wanted to be able to create things on my own without constantly being dependant on Father or Mother to finish what I started. 

He returned at around dinnertime with loaves of bread and other baked goods that smelled too delicious to sell. I had prepared herbed rice and wren meat that Mother had bought from the village hunters that evening. Small birds were common and the most convenient to catch in the mountains, so our diet revolved around them. It was rare for the hunters to catch something larger than a rabbit - and even that wasn’t common. The cold temperatures were relatively consistent year-round and large game was scarce. 

A few times a year, a bear or a lone wolf would be captured, which was a cause for celebration in the village. Instead of selling all the meat for that day, a feast would be prepared for the entire community. We would all help in our own way - the women would prepare rice dishes, Father would bake his beloved honey cakes, the younger generation would clean and set tables, and the men would bring out their best liquor for the occasion. Adults would dance all night while the young would test their limits with alcohol for the first time. Those were the happiest nights of the year, when the villagers all came together. 

Well, all but one. 

Those nights were the only times when everyone seemed to forget that our people were cursed. They felt almost normal on feast nights, a rare delight when everyone could let their hair down and act as though they could do anything they wanted without restrictions.  

The following night was one of those precious times. 

A bear was caught up in the forest along the mountain side. The hunters came back to the village triumphantly, each of them lending their strength to carry the beast home. Word spread of the upcoming feast like wildfire, engulfing the weary people in a fiery elation that made the dark caves seem just a little brighter. Hiroshi and his friends were cleaning out the large room used for large events, such as weddings, funerals, meetings, and the like. Usually, I would be cleaning alongside them, but Father asked me to help him prepare the honey cakes instead. 

When I first started baking with Father, the results were clumpy and too floury. Now, after a few years of practice, my small cakes looked like his. There was a feeling of pride when I placed my neat, uncooked cakes down next to his - a satisfaction I had been waiting years for. Surely, if I could become as good a baker as my father, then I could hold a place in this village apart from childbearing and motherhood. I held no compassion for children, so the thought of having a path that would allow me to support myself financially was a cause of great joy. 

Once they were all lined up and ready to be brought to the kitchen, I got to work on cleaning the remainder of the dough and wiping the flour off the table. Finishing early, I searched for busy work to occupy me before we drizzled the honey over the freshly baked cakes. Mother was out already, making side dishes with the other women of the village, and it normally took Father a couple of hours before finishing all the batches. With nothing left in our rooms to do, and my lack of desire to help Hiroshi and his stupid friends, I grabbed my mask and wandered back to the maze. I spent a lot of time here when I had time to spare and no one to run errands for. I played games with myself by going as deep into the tunnels as I could, closing my eyes, and trying to find my way back by just tracing the walls with my fingers. Hiroshi warned me that doing this would get me in trouble, that I’d run into the Seiryuu and get turned into stone, but he didn’t know what he was talking about. He didn’t see what I saw. 

My thoughts found their way back to that night less often as I grew older, but I did go over all that I could remember from time to time. After a few years or so, the concept of that boy ceased to frighten me altogether, and that fear was replaced with a certain curiosity I knew I wasn’t allowed to have. 

It didn’t take me long to figure out where I was and how to get back, though there were a few moments when I worried I might have taken a wrong turn along the way. Part of me knew that there had to be other hallways, other rooms, other passageways leading to that boy with the blue hair. This remained the greatest mystery to me and, if I was being honest with myself, it was partially the reason why I chose the maze to pass my free time. I didn’t actively search for him, but I wasn’t against the idea of stumbling upon him in some section of the caves I had never seen before. 

But I also wasn’t stupid. I knew that the elders hid him away where no one else would be able to find him. They had been doing so for years and had perfected the art of isolation at that point - an eleven year old was not going to crack their code, especially if the adults couldn’t.

I had been wandering for about twenty or so minutes when I heard it. A deep rumbling that reverberated in my bones, a pulse like a giant stomping vehemently throughout the caves - an earthquake. 

I ran. I passed the tunnel that I originally came through and peeled the corner towards the nearest exit from the caves. There were about eight tunnels connected to the outside world, aside from the main entrance to the caves, each leading to various landings on the mountain. When we first moved here, we expected the earthquakes, yet another curse upon us, and learned the fastest routes to safety from every point within the caves. I had been through this a hundred times before and, luckily for me, I was fast. 

I wove through tunnel after tunnel, following the mental map I had committed to memory years ago. Large crashes vibrated from deep inside the caves -- the unmistakeable sound of tunnels collapsing. Frantically, I forced my legs to push harder, faster, faster, faster. Sweat glided down from the crown of my forehead and mingled with the tears cradled along the edges of my eyelids. Two years back, I was close enough to a collapse that my body froze, my legs had gone numb, unwilling to save me. Rocks fell from what I once considered my home and landed mere inches in front of me, the smaller ones bouncing off one another to scrape my skin and force droplets of blood to seep through the cracks under my feet. I was close -- I survived. My mother called it a miracle, she called me blessed. I did not know true fear until that day, but, more importantly, I did not know it was possible to not trust my own body. I vowed to never know that feeling again. 

_Never again,_ _never again_ , I repeated to myself, over and over until the nearest mouth of the caves was in sight. The early evening breeze washed over me like cold water to a dry throat. Relief was not a strong enough word to describe how I felt - the exhilaration to still be alive. 

That relief was short lived. 

I felt the first rock that landed on my left shoulder, and I vaguely remembered the smaller one that sliced down my forehead. Blood and grains of dirt clouded my vision, which had already started to blur. 

But everything in between that, and waking up at the base of the mountain, surrounded by my parents and the village healers, who were nursing a stump where my left leg should have been, went missing.  

My body felt strange in a way I couldn’t explain. It was as though there was a dormant pain rooted deep within every bone and muscle, coated in a cracking layer of numbness, steadily increasing in intensity. My breathing picked up rapidly. Where it was previously next to nonexistent, it was now overwhelmingly uncontrollable. 

_ Something’s wrong with me.  _

“W… Wh… aaat… h-happ… pen… ?” With numb lips, words I couldn’t feel slurred out in a rough, choppy voice I didn’t recognize as my own. Hot tears trailed down my face, falling in between the corners of my mouth, and I immediately started coughing them back out. The more I hacked away at them, the faster new ones appeared to take their place.

“Shhh… shhhh, it’s okay, it’s going to be okay,” my father said, stroking my hair, his voice sounding somewhere too far away for me to reach. “It’s all going to be okay.”

“Hhhh… h… ow … did I… ?”

“It’s okay, you’re okay,” he said, over and over again. “The Seiryuu found you,” he whispered now, lips pressed against my bleeding temple. “He’s the one who carried you out.”

And then everything went black.

**Author's Note:**

> If you're reading this, then omg thank you for actually getting this far. This is a very very rough draft. It's been awhile since I've flexed my writing muscles, but I absolutely fell in love with the manga so I couldn't resist getting back in the writing game. Any constructive criticism is greatly appreciated!


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